May 12th, 2008

a fiery Mother’s Day dessert

The hubs never goes a normal route. His Mother’s Day feast was no exception.

The main course began normally enough, rotisserie grilled Cornish hens, corn on the cob and salad, but the dessert….

He enlisted Kid’s help with the charcoal chimney for starters. They lit it in the driveway. (setting things on fire? bring the kids over here, hon!)

Meanwhile, they stirred up cake mix, sweet cherries, chopped nuts and Kid’s energetic sprinkling of cinnamon in the hub’s new dutch oven (he thinks he’s going camping this year).

Kid repeatedly checked the status of the coals. White? Not white? Finally, she yelled white!!

They put the oven on the coals and several briquets on top.

And when the timer rang, we had. . . .DRIVEWAY CAKE!

I danced and chanted DRIVEWAY CAKE! DRIVEWAY CAKE! DRIVEWAY CAKE!

(a fun cake, if you don’t play in traffic)

Until Kid said, “Moooooommmmm, stop that. You’re freaking me out.”

(Embarrassed by mommy, at age 4? Harumph.)

I hope all you mothers out there had a delicious day!

(Driveway cake! Driveway cake! Driveway cake!)

[Join the fun of Make Me Laugh Mondays hosted by Absolutely Bananas!]

May 9th, 2008

is it voyeurism if….

it was two of these?

dsc_0129.JPG

I didn’t MEAN to invade anyone’s privacy, especially a red-breasted sapsucker’s (although, they ARE doing it in PLAIN SIGHT).

The binoculars just happened to be around my neck at the time.

It was a quickie (or, perhaps that was normal speed…), and then there was some post-coital, solo feather pruning. He flew off right away. Typical.

Straighten those feathers all you want, birdie-girl, we could STILL tell what just happened. That red breast, slightly redder, more flushed.

Congratulate me! My first sapsucker sex! Want a cigarette?

May 8th, 2008

I bet my worm is longer than your worm

Recent local news to gross you out educate you on the state of really long, and super-gross and slimy almost extinct giant worms:

By JOHN K. WILEY, Associated Press Writer
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Parts of an earthworm found near the Cascade mountain town of Leavenworth have challenged scientists’ contentions that a unique, 3-foot-long native species lives only in the Palouse region of Washington and Idaho….

3 foot long? Um, ICK. And Leavenworth is such a cute (maybe, too cute) town.

The recent discoveries are only the seventh time one of the elusive creatures has been found since the 1970s….

You’d be an elusive creature, too, if you looked like that and had no legs or wings to get away. Have you seen the number of robins in this state? Hello?

Once thought to be plentiful under the native Palouse prairie,…

Plentiful? Again, ICK.

…. where the pale white earthworms reportedly grew to 3 feet long, only chopped-up remnants of a foot or less have been found in recent decades.

“Chopped-up remnants”?? True, even Top Chef contestants have never used more than one or two feet of worm. 3 would overpower the rest of the ingredients.

Scientists think it may secrete a lily-scented mucous to discourage predators.

Now, you’re just bullsh*ttin’ us, right?

“We are going to resample those sites. We’re hoping to collect intact specimens for identification,” she said. “It is often the case with soft-bodied organisms that they do get damaged.”

Don’t I know it. I find bruises every morning on my soft body and have NO IDEA how I got them.

The most recent remains of what is likely a Palouse earthworm were found in Palouse prairie remnants on the Paradise Ridge farm of Wayne and Jacie Jensen south of Moscow in early March.

Note to self: cancel summer vacation to Paradise Farm.

Lee Matthews, a Seattle resident who owns 20 acres of Ponderosa pine forest near Leavenworth, sent portions of a large worm he found last November to Johnson-Maynard.

Always the romantic, that Lee. Nothing like giant worm parts to warm a girl’s heart.

I know, I know. Where’s the picture of this slippery guy?

Here:
080503_giant_worm.jpg

Cute, eh? And that’s before the stylist had arrived.

May 7th, 2008

Learn-A-Word Wednesday: inveigle \in-VAY-guhl; -VEE-\

transitive verb:

1. To persuade by ingenuity or flattery; to entice.
2. To obtain by ingenuity or flattery.

Inveigle comes from Anglo-French enveogler, from Old French aveugler, “to blind, to lead astray as if blind,” from aveugle, “blind,” from Medieval Latin ab oculis, “without eyes.”

I chose this word because Kid has taken a new tact, a new style of attack. Rather than yell, scream, and stomp feet to get something, she occasionally tries to inveigle me into giving her something. She usually starts this softer attack with “I looooooove you, Mommy. Will you lean your head down?”

At which point she kisses me, often before an audience who then moans, “Awwwwwww.”

Then she goes in for the kill, with sweetness oozing out of her ears, eyes, fingertips, and elbows.

“Can we go to the ice cream shop? Pullllleeeze??”

Isn’t she cute?

I’m pretty sure she learned this from her dad.

Are you getting inveigled?

May 4th, 2008

internet babes?

Just the usual bedtime chat this weekend:

“And so you came out of Grammy’s tummy?”

“Yup.”

“And I came out of YOUR tummy!”

“Right!”

“I was IN your tummy when you were in Grammy’s tummy?!”

“No. Later. I had to grow up and become a lady first (snickering not necessary). THEN I could have a baby.”

(we gotta be close to $3,000 in future therapy for Kid)

“Oh. First you grew up, THEN you found me on the INTERNET?”

(make that $9,000)

Perhaps, I should not have said a few months back that she picked me out of all the mommies in the Mommy Shop. Maybe THAT was a mistake.

But I never said she shopped ONLINE.

We did just find her a new DRESS online. Babies, dresses, whatevah. It’s the shipping and handling fees that really burn (ba-da-ching!).

“Nooooooo,” I said. “Mommies and daddies make babies. They have a special formula to make a baby grow in the mommy’s tummy.”

(Good, eh? Somewhat true, not too specific…. “Special formula,” not to be confused with “secret sauce” or Grecian Formula.”)

Okay, I admit I was kinda unprepared for this topic.

What brilliance would you say to a 4 year old! Huh??

May 1st, 2008

in which I find I have another princess….

dsc_0332.JPG It’s been about five months since Kid got her new big-girl bed, and guess who decided it is GOOD?

By day, (I just discovered) she lounges here when she gets a quiet moment (when DOES a princess get a moment to herself??). By night, she elbows me, kicks me, and moans her doggy dreams in my bed.

dsc_0323.JPG Of course, added bonus is she can watch birds out the window. Robins, robins, everywhere.

dsc_0330.JPG Oh, princess grows weary of photo shoots. Get me my biscuit, lackey.

April 30th, 2008

Learn-A-Word Wednesday: afflatus \uh-FLAY-tuhs\

noun:

A divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.

Aristophanes must have eclipsed them . . . by the exhibition of some diviner faculty, some higher spiritual afflatus.
— John Addington Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets

Afflatus is from Latin afflatus, past participle of afflare, “to blow at or breathe on,” from ad-, “at” + flare, “to puff, to blow.”

Gotta love those Romans! They manage to make a cousin of flatulent equate to divine inspiration. I double checked to make sure this wasn’t quoting Bickus Dickus somewhere.

I’m gonna make a new language in which “stinky” also means “orange blossoms,” “unprepared” means “perfect,” and “rejection” is the same as “infatuation.” Oh, and “svelte” means “pudgy.”

Yeah.

Got any new vocabulary you want to add?

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